Zak's Notes From Cascade
by wneleh
Summary: Ghost Adventures/The Sentinel XO. Zak, Nick, and Aaron travel to Cascade, Washington, to do what they do. Takes place shortly after The Sentinel episode The Waiting Room the one with Molly the Ghost .


Zak's Notes From Cascade  
By Helen W.

_This is what happens when your daughter becomes obsessed with Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures. Takes place shortly after 'The Waiting Room.'_

Tuesday, 10 a.m. We've come to Cascade, Washington - the most dangerous city in America - to investigate reports of a particularly strong presence in an abandoned tenement on the north side of the city. According to rumors circulating in the paranormal blogosphere, just last month the ghost of a woman named Molly Charles helped police solve her own decades-old murder mystery, bringing to justice a prominent local artist. An artist whose mediums include murder.

Or is that 'media'? I think 'mediums' will sound better on the voiceover.

We drove past the building, at 335 First Street, this morning, but Nick wouldn't stop the SUV. Claimed something didn't feel right. I asked him to explain the nature of his "feelings," but Aaron hit me over the head with a clipboard and told me to use my eyes. He should know by now that vision is our least perceptive sense. And that I spend way too much time and effort on this hair for either of them to be messing with it.

10:18 a.m. We've arrived at Cascade Police Headquarters and've made our way to "Major Crimes." Not minor crimes, MAJOR. Meaning both 'significant' and, in the military, someone who has progressed beyond captaincy.

How have Cascade's many major crimes shaped these men?

Is haunting more than just paranormal to them? Is it metaphysical too?

By golly, there's a woman. Make that "shaped these men AND women." Yeah, I think that'll sound fine.

10:23 a.m. A Capt. Banks didn't seem happy to see us, but a detective, Henry Brown, is willing to talk with us at noon. Time to set up a spot for an interview - maybe that bagel shop on the corner?

12:43 p.m. That was worthwhile. Detective Brown is familiar with our work, and wanted to share a few things. First, he made it clear that he couldn't talk about the most recent murder at the tenement, which is FASCINATING because it somehow had eluded our research that there had been such a fresh MAJOR CRIME onsite. I've asked Aaron to look up everything he can about a Peter Willis, apparently murdered by his partner, Daniel Trent, over a business dispute gone horribly wrong.

Back to what Det. Brown had to say. While protesting constantly that he doesn't believe in ghosts, complete with wiggly fingers (I hate it when skeptics use wiggly fingers), he wanted to share that he cannot figure out where the lead detective on the case, a Jim Ellison, came up with the name of our killer artist, or the composite sketch that led them to an important witness. Apparently Det. Ellison is a kind of savant - his methodology, his evidence is always rock-solid, but the path to it isn't always clear - but he's never pulled a sketch, or a name, out of thin air before.

Det. Brown said we might have some luck talking with Ellison's housemate, a Blair Sandburg, who's a graduate student at a local university.

Do you know what scares me more than mannequins? Graduate student offices. Nevertheless, we're heading there after I finish this bagel.

2:17 p.m. Apparently (which I am using ironically) (shut up, Aaron, 'irony' has lots of different meanings, look it up) (and stop it with the clip board and my hair! This look takes time).

Where was I?

_Interestingly_, Sandburg claims that _nothing odd happened_at the First Street building. Nothing, nothing at all. He'd just drugged his partner by accident, isn't that funny.

Nick and Aaron almost lost it completely, because, DUDE, you don't drug a police detective! And if you do, you don't admit it on camera! Lucky for both of them, that part probably won't fit into our narrative.

Doesn't explain either of the inconsistencies mentioned by Det. Brown, either.

4:03 p.m. Doing another drive-by of the tenement. Again the guys won't stop; again they won't tell me what they sense, just gesture at the burned-out cars. "Where there PEOPLE in those cars, do you think?" I ask and they just ignore me. I want to ask one of the gentlemen sleeping in the park across the street, but Nick's threatened to tie me to the steering wheel.

Anyway, it's getting a little late, considering how early our flight was. Time to grab a bite of dinner.

Wednesday, 9:03 a.m. What a night! First, we discovered our luggage had been rifled through in our locked hotel rooms. During dinner, there was an attempted mob-hit in the restaurant next door. Gunfire all night, and this morning we discovered our SUV's radio was missing. It's as if all the crime from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho put together were focused into this sleepy city of 700,000!

In between all the what-seem-to-be-only-MINOR crimes by local standards, Aaron was able to dig up just about everything there is to know about the Trent murder. Which, unfortunately, isn't much. Partner stabbed him, end of story. This does complicate matters, though - doing a full investigation of a properly requires the cooperation of the owners, and if one's dead and the other's in jail our way forward is murky.

Nick has argued that, given the local climate, a little breaking and entering would probably be fine, so we'll pack light (the guys don't want to leave anything in the SUV, and I think I agree) and see what we can find.

11:23 a.m. This is boring. Tenement, schmenement. Give me an old mental hospital any day of the week.

This place is just an empty building, with a lot of broken glass. And I don't like broken glass any more than I like grad student offices; worse, because you can cut yourself on this stuff, man! It's like reflective snakes.

And now Nick's taken away the piece I was looking at.

Aaron's shaking his head. "I'm feeling something, dude," he says. "There's something lingering." And now Nick's looking nervous, because if there's one thing he hates it's when he doesn't know what we're dealing with. Ever since that possession in Savannah, he's been jumpy; the producers won't let me say PTSD out loud, but that's what I'm thinking.

And, oh, look, Cascade's finest DO investigate alarm trips (I'm guessing) because here's Blair Sandburg again, trailing another man… who seems to be our Det. Ellison. Let's see what's what.

2:17 p.m. THAT was fascinating. Room lit up like a Christmas Tree when Ellison came in. "You, you, you!" as clear as day; we got it on three separate devices. Five, six seconds' worth.

And Ellison was all, like, "I thought you'd gone" to the voice, and Sandburg was all, "Maybe it's not a binary thing - maybe she can slide between worlds," and at the same time he's saying, to us, "See, the effects of those drugs I gave Ellison, they've LINGERED," and Aaron's going crazy with cameras and recorders, and Nick's putting down x's, and Aaron's saying he calls dibs on the room during our lock-in.

So I got Ellison alone by having Aaron show Sandburg some of the equipment - turns out, Sandburg's a bit of an expert in his own right, and says he's picked up a bunch of gear recently, "Just because." Uh-huh.

Anyway, once I got Ellison away from his little guard-dog I asked him whether the building was, to his knowledge, haunted.

"Haunted - has negative connotations," he said.

Which is a fabulous answer.

Then - get this - he said he'd help us do a lock-in TONIGHT. Usually we do a lot more leg-work first, but he said that he's between disasters, carpe diem, etc. etc.

So we're off to nap.

7 p.m. Okay, we're ready to start our night at the Cascade Tenement. Or maybe we'll call it First Street Tenement? (Or maybe the producers will kill it, unless we get lucky tonight.) Jim and Blair (we're doing first names now) are staying with us, because clearly w/o Jim there's no story whatsoever, and it seems we don't get Jim without Blair. Being a bit of a package deal myself, I understand.

We've decided that, since it's only this apartment where we've felt anything, we might as well all stay here, together.

8:13 p.m. Nothing useful yet, but Blair's just told me about his first time in the building -he was chased here by carjackers, then tripped over Daniel Trent as he lay dying. I told Nick, see, THAT'S worth developing PTSD over. Nick snapped back, "Back scratch freakout, you dandelion," which wasn't nice but was, I guess, fair.

Jim looked more troubled than Blair by his story, but Blair said, "I was an idiot; I shouldn't have been in this neighborhood at that hour."

"You know, Simon gave me an out because of it; said I could write-off seeing something to the shock of what'd gone down with you," said Jim.

"Really?" said Blair. "He said that?"

"He was grasping for straws," said Jim. "But it wasn't too far a grasp."

8:47 p.m. Still nothing. "What are you going to do if we do detect something?" Blair just asked just a moment ago. "I don't watch your show. How do you help the spirits along their path?"

Nick and Aaron both looked at me; we've discussed this amongst ourselves plenty. I explained that we do attempt to give what comfort we can, if the spirit deserves it, but that that's not really our thing.

Of course Blair asked why not, and Nick piped in that we're just not that good at it. And that's part of it, but just part.

And now Aaron's looking at me. "These guys are being pretty darn open," he says. "I think you owe it back." He gestures at the closest window. "Besides, what's the chance the SUV's going to be drivable tomorrow morning? They're probably our ride out of here."

"Okay," I say, "It's about proof. Unassailable proof that I'm not crazy. Doing the show, that's what pays for it all, but it's not my motivation."

"What are you trying to prove?" Blair asks. "You've been doing this a while, right? You've convinced yourself, and Nick and Aaron. What more do you need?"

Nick laughs, "You don't know Zak," but Aaron's focused on me sharp now. "I'd like to hear what you have to say, too," he says.

"Okay," I say, but I really don't have a quick answer, so it takes me a while (or so it feels) to continue. "It's about understanding, I guess. You know, I'm not a whiz at science stuff. And theology? I wouldn't know where to begin. But going out - banging on the truth - it's got to be the best way of FINDING that truth, right? Even if you kind of look like an idiot in the process."

"Especially if you look like an idiot," says Nick. And I'm angry for a second, but I realize he's right.

"Exactly," I say. "Making you look like an idiot, some kind of dork, that's the best defense that truth has. Because who wants the ridicule? So people stay safe, stick to the known. A couple of years ago, I said, to hell with all that. And here we are."

"Really," says Jim, like I've just said something really important. And now I'm wondering, just how often does the guy see ghosts?

Or maybe it's not ghosts he's thinking about at all?

Thursday, 10:13 a.m. The night was a total bust. Nothing registered on either Aaron's or Blair's equipment. I dosed off, and got more sleep than I did the previous night - no gun shots, woo-hoo. And our SUV even made it through in one piece (probably having the stereo gone already helped).

So we're out of Cascade this afternoon; there are probably more ghosts here, but the producer called and said the network insurance people flipped when they heard where we were.

I think we'll have to toss everything - five seconds of "you, you, you" just does not an episode make.

Think we'll head to Colorado Springs - I've been hearing there's some oddness happening around Cheyenne Mountain.

* * * THE END * * *


End file.
